State's money woes so bad, lawmakers getting eviction notices

Lawmakers get eviction notices

Budget crunch means state is slow to pay office rents

The state's money problems are so bad that lawmakers are getting
eviction notices and calls from collection agencies about their offices
back home.

At least five state senators say they've piled up so much unpaid rent,
sheepish landlords are asking them when the government plans to make
good on its bills.

"He said, ‘Ira, I'm sorry,'" said Sen. Ira Silverstein, D-Chicago,
recalling a visit from his landlord delivering an eviction notice. "And
what am I going to do? I can't argue with the man."

While none of the lawmakers has actually gotten the boot yet, they are
getting a taste of the frustratingly slow pace at which the state pays
bills as it careens toward a $13 billion budget hole. It's a pain that's
magnified exponentially for school districts, drug rehabilitation
counselors and businesses awaiting tax refunds.

"It certainly puts us in a position of looking like deadbeats," said
Sen. Mike Jacobs, an East Moline Democrat who got an eviction notice
last year from a longtime friend who has rented the same building for
years to the senator and his father before him. Payment eventually
arrived — nine months late — but Jacobs was prepared to pay if the state
had failed to come through.

A notice threatening eviction startled freshman Sen. Dan Duffy, a Lake
Barrington Republican. Unsure when the state will cough up the $10,000
it owes his landlord, Duffy is scrambling to see if he can take refuge
in a nearby secretary of state driver's license outlet or a local
library should he eventually get evicted.

"When they can't pay the rent of a Senate office, there's no way they're
going to be able to pay the hundreds of millions of dollars in bills
that they have back due," Duffy said. "It just shows what a tragic
crisis we're in and how far out of hand this is."

In the grand scope of what ails state government, the lawmakers all said
they recognized late rent for Senate offices is far from the most
pressing budget issue.

Each senator receives $83,063 a year as a district office allowance, and
the bills end up at the comptroller's office.

Every day, comptroller workers sift through bills for all of state
government and prioritize what must be paid and what has to wait. Each
month, $2 billion is set aside. The state must make payments to schools
and repay short-term loans. It must pay hospitals, nursing homes and
doctors caring for Medicaid patients within 30 days in order to get the
best return from the federal government.

Languishing further back in line are the bills to pay rents for lawmaker
district offices.

Steve Brown, spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago,
said he knew of no eviction notices going to House members, but has
heard that some legislators "on the brink" have had to dip into their
own pockets or campaign funds to pay landlords or keep phone service.

Getting utility bills paid in a timely fashion has been a problem for
Sen. John Jones, R-Mount Vernon.

"I've heard from collection agencies every month on the power bill and
the phone bill," Jones said. The state once fell seven months behind on
his district office's $900-a-month rent, and he recalled the landlord
saying, "I gotta pay my bills, and I need my money."

Sen. Dan Kotowski, D-Park Ridge, said the state may be as much as one
year and $24,000 behind on his office's lease payments and that he's had
to dip into campaign funds to make phone payments.

"Service was shut down," Kotowski said. "I wasn't able to communicate
with my constituents, and constituents were not able to communicate with
me, and I just decided to use other funds to pay for it."

Silverstein said his landlord did get a payment after the senator
received the eviction notice, at least temporarily defusing the
situation.

But Silverstein's landlord, Demetrios Spyrakos, said Friday he hasn't
received rent payments since October. He's owed more than $12,000 from
the state.

Spyrakos blames Gov. Pat Quinn, who's tried but failed to get an income
tax increase approved. The Jamestown Realty co-owner said he thinks
Silverstein is a "good person, but I've been asking for the rent. He's
trying, but nobody listens to him or to me."

Silverstein, whose office is in the West Rogers Park neighborhood, might
have to find a new place to work out of soon.

"If I don't get my money by next month, I have to ask him politely to
leave and try to find another tenant," Spyrakos said. "What else can you
do? I can't wait forever. Who's going to pay my bills?"

Comments

The entire budget crisis is completely ridiculous... and I do mean all of it, from our inability to pay New Flyer for new buses for the CTA (which resulted in layoffs at New Flyer) caused by some sort of stimulus cash flow slowdown/delay, to the millions owed the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (which means higher tuition) --among other such institutions -- the list just goes on and on and on. I don't know what the solution might be (I certainly do not claim to know it all), but the government needs to come up with a solution to balance the budget -- as I know they can, if they just put their minds to it -- and preserve the services upon which we all depend once and for all, preferably w/o further hiking taxes and burdening already hurting taxpayers. This is getting insane already. Lets hope a solution is found... and soon.

All 50 aldermen on the Chicago City Council had to file paperwork earlier this year detailing their outside income and gifts. The Tribune took that ethics paperwork and posted the information here for you to see. You can search by ward number or alderman's last name.

The Cook County Assessor's office has put together lists of projected median property tax bills for all suburban towns and city neighborhoods. We've posted them for you to get a look at who's paying more and who's paying less.

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Clout has a special meaning in Chicago, where it can be a noun, a verb or an adjective. This exercise of political influence in a uniquely Chicago style was chronicled in the Tribune cartoon "Clout Street" in the early 1980s. Clout Street, the blog, offers an inside look at the politics practiced from Chicago's City Hall to the Statehouse in Springfield, through the eyes of the Tribune's political and government reporters.